Vacutainer.RTM. tubes are tubes commonly used in medical laboratories; these tubes are of differing sizes; evacuated to pull in the proper amount of liquid for a particular test and closed with a septum or stopper that may be pierced with a hypodermic needle to pull the proper amount of liquid from the hypodermic needle for the particular test and seal the vacutainer.RTM. tube upon withdrawal of the hypodermic needle. A guard to allow the technician to safely use the tubes by prevention of accidental self injection is of critical interest to the technician. The objectives of this invention are to provide a safe, simple economical guard and tube holder that the technician may use with the minimum effort and the maximum efficiency. Preferably the unit should be simple enough that a technician may carry several in a pocket and cheap enough to be a throw-away item while providing the necessary protection.
There are several patents in the prior art that are intended to protect the technician from accidental needle sticks while transferring fluids to tube containers. We find no prior art that adequately fulfills the objectives of our invention as outlined in these specifications and claims.